Elsewhere, Roberta X has blogged about the tiny country of Kalmykia. The Head of The Republic of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, is also the President of the World Chess Federation, and chess is compulsory in all primary schools. But there is a dark side to "Chess Tourism":
Another chess-related death!
In the late 1990s, there were allegations that the Ilyumzhinov government was spending much government money on projects to do with chess. These were published in Sovietskaya Kalmykia, the opposition newspaper in Elista. Larisa Yudina, the journalist who investigated these accusations, was kidnapped and murdered in 1998. Two men, Sergei Vaskin and Tyurbi Boskomdzhiv, who worked in the local civil service, were charged with her murder. After prolonged investigations by the Russian authorities, both men were found guilty and jailed, but there was no evidence that Ilyumzhinov was in any way responsible.
Another chess-related death!
Clearly, it is past time to ban these instruments of death.
ReplyDeleteWhen they convict a guy in court, I wonder if, instead of saying "the jury has found the defendant: guilty," they just say "checkmate."
ReplyDelete